go under

verb

went under; gone under; going under; goes under

intransitive verb

1

: sink entry 1 sense 1a

The ship went under in the storm.

2

: to be overwhelmed, destroyed, or defeated : fail

The company went under during the recession.

Examples of go under in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The first is the construction of the data center building, and the second is the compute servers and networking equipment that go under the roof. — Jim Cramer, CNBC, 2 Aug. 2026

When the dot-com bubble burst, nearly 5k companies went under and the Nasdaq fell 77%. — HubSpot, 31 July 2026

Another Southeast Michigan tourist attraction, Mystery Hill in the Irish Hills region of Lenawee County, went under new ownership this year. — Paula Wethington, CBS News, 31 July 2026

Less than two weeks later, the home went under contract, according to the property listing. — Rachel McRady, PEOPLE, 28 July 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1820, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for go under

• asunder
• blunder
• bunder
• funder
• plunder
• sunder
• thunder